Crossing over & South Florida

We were all set to come back to the USA 🇺🇸,  we had enough of the beautiful blue waters , not really I could have stayed longer.  We had been checking the weather forecast, reading our Chris Parker weather updates, and checking our wind apps (Windy and PredictWind),.  Once we knew we were leaving, we checked out at Customs,  which means we showed our Cruising Permit and they stamped our paper and sent us on our way. 

On May 11th, we were on the fuel dock before they opened.  We had a perfect day to start our journey back to Florida, after the last crossing to Bimini, we needed a perfect day.  Our friends from Be As You Are had left before 6 am, sailboaters ⛵. 

Once we were 3 miles off shore I lowered the Bahamain courtesy flag 🇧🇸. 

We were in the Gulf Stream taking advantage of the current, we averaged 9.6 knots 🪢,  not bad for normal 8 knot boat.  After several hours we had made contact with Be As You Are, Rob let them know we were going to wake them as we passed.

WOW! 11.3 knots

It was a very uneventful journey, we had an awesome day. We entered the Lake Worth inlet. This was an interesting area, we were headed to Lake Park Marina.  Navionics routed us between a Shoal and a marina, it looked as though people were standing in the channel. 

Florida on the horizon

Due to current and wind in the marina we had just a little issue getting into the slip, once we were in Rob used the ROAM app to check us back into the US 🇺🇸. 

Our only night here we walked to a Mexican restaurant, we both had a craving for either Mexican or sushi 🍣.  We were surprised to find out the restaurant had wine margaritas 🍹, not tequila.  We skipped the margaritas, but the food was delicious 😋.  We both had a chili releno, a taco, and an enchilada with rice and beans (yuck). 

Next, we were headed to Fort Pierce, we were looking forward to seeing family and getting our packages we had shipped.  We stayed at the Fort Pierce City Marina.  The marina is in a great location, restaurants and shops within walking distance.

The next day, our niece Brianna, picked us up and brought us lots of goodies.  We purchased a portable generator to assist with the generator problem, a new flag (torn to shreds), and a few other things.

Brianna chauffeured us around to West Marine (more packages) and some other minor items, Publix to provision, the refrigerator was empty, and to the fish 🐟 market.

For dinner we met Zach, Brianna, and Jett at Cobbs Landing.  I cannot believe 😪 we did not take any pictures with us and the kids, especially young Jett. 

On Friday morning 🌄, May 14th, we were so excited, I made a delicious fresh fruit salad (the little things in life). I also scored Fruity Pebble coffee creamer, yum.

We (Rob) spent the day doing boat chores, replacing the head pump, and walking around Fort Pierce.

Theater

He doesn't make a very good Zombie

At the fish 🐟 market, we bought fresh Ahi tuna and swordfish. Tonight's dinner was tuna poke bowls. You can find my recipes on our My Onboard Recipes blog.

On Saturday morning we began heading north, we weren't 100 % sure where our destination was going to be.  After 8 1/2 hours, we arrived at the free wall in Cocoa. After tying up I see a sign stating dock closed 5/15/21 10 pm to 5/16/21 11 am. Of course, I'm  checking the date on my watch⌚. I even double checked with Rob, this can't be right, but would explain why the dock was empty except for another sailboat.

We untied from the dock and moved the boat into the harbor where we dropped the anchor ⚓.  Time for a cocktail and swordfish 🐟 for dinner.

Chocolate 🍫 Martini

Swordfish over greens

We found out the dock was closed due to a triathlon 🏃‍♀️ 🏃‍♂️ 🚴‍♂️ 🚴‍♀️ 🏊‍♂️ 🏊‍♀️.

On Sunday morning 🌄, we headed to New Smyrna Beach (NSB). We stopped here on the way south last year for an afternoon and thought it would be a good place to check out.

We made it into our slip without any issues. I even got the lines over the pylon on my first try, the deckhand was impressed.  We even had bystanders to assist and we were good to go.

Our plan was to stay one night, well one night 🌙 turned into two nights, two nights 🌙 turned into the weekend.  Now we are into a week here and looking to stay longer.  Why? Did we fall in love with New Smyrna? 

Well, things have progressed and we decided it was time to start the next phase of our life.  What does this mean? We are selling Ka'Why Knot. WHAT? 👀 👀

Wednesday morning the 19th of May we decided to purchase a vehicle 🚗,  we went and looked at Fords, Chevy's, Dodges and on Friday we purchased a 2021 Toyota 4 Runner 🏃‍♀️. 

Rob contacted Curtis Stokes and Associates, Inc. which is a licensed and bonded yacht brokerage specializing in worldwide yacht sales, based on a recommendation from Mark Solsman, a friend from Maryland.  Thursday morning 🌄, we met with our broker Eddie Sus from Curtis Stokes.

In the meantime, we are enjoying our time ⏲️ in NSB. Old Fort Park is directly across the street from the marina. The ruins are a mysterious 55' x 86' coquina foundation with walls five and a half feet thick. It was thought to be a Spanish Fort predating St. Augustine or Andrew Turnball's town Mansion. Andrew Turnball founded New Smyrna, Florida.

We spent the afternoon on the beach ⛱ and seen the rocket launch 🚀. We have a new favorite hangout called Corkscrew and bartender Heaven (that's her name). 

Rocket launch 

Plume

Corkscrew happy hour

We also have been doing a lot of decluttering, projects, fiberglass repair, cleaning, purging, etc. so the boat 🚢 would be ready for pictures and hopefully showings.

Rob working on fiberglass, finally!

Cushions cleaned

Saloon is fresh

Stateroom tidy

At this point, we do not know what our plans are, purchase an RV, airbnb rentals, travel, so many possibilities. Stay tuned for the next adventure of our nomad life. 

Bahamas - What Went Wrong and Lessons Learned

Whoever said, "A boat -- doing repairs in exotic places" could not have been closer to the truth. First off, bringing spare parts is critical. But you will rarely have the part you need or need the part you have. So what went wrong?

• Anchor chain locker filled with water. We spent our first two days going up Hawk Chanel into the wind with waves breaking over the bow. Somehow the chain locker filled with water and eventually overflowed into the V-berth. To mitigate this, we slowed down enough on future passages so the waves did not break over the bow. No clue how water is getting in.

• GPS to VHF suddenly stopped working. Our I-don't-know-how-old Raymarine Raystar 125 GPS stopped working and sending location/time data to the VHF about the time we arrived at Mackie Shoal in the middle of nowhere. Not that big a deal since we have about 20 other GPS' on board. Well... unless we needed to hit the distress button on the VHF to transmit location/MMSI data to the Coast Guard. We have an EPIRB and inReach that can send distress notifications via satellite so this was more an annoyance than a concern. I am going to attempt to create a NMEA 2000 network, connected to Raymarine's SeaTalk network to connect the AIS GPS to the VHF. Waiting for one more part...

• Toilet in our stateroom head stopped working. This also happened on Mackie Shoal -- in the middle of nowhere. Took it apart (Gross!) and cleaned it. Two days later it stopped working again. Took it apart and really cleaned it. Two days later it stopped working. We had two options. Simply walk another 10 feet in the middle of the night to the forward head or swap Jabsco Conversion Kits. I decided we'd be inconvenienced and I would replace once we got back to the States. That repair was done in Ft. Pierce after visiting West Marine.

• Generator stopped working. This was not a mechanic problem (unfortunately). This is a generator-not-generating electricity problem. It appears the exciter rotor is missing some wire and a diode or two. This looks like a major repair and I don't know when we'll be in any one place long enough to get it repaired. The generator is bolted to the engine block and has two engine mounts on it. Hopefully just that portion can be removed to repair and not the entire generator removed. Luckily, Derek had a portable generator that he loaned us to keep the house batteries charged -- mainly for the refrigerator that pretty much ran 24/7. I bought one when we returned to the States as our workaround until we can get it repaired.

• Outboard totally unreliable. An electric Torqeedo Travel 1003 sounded perfect. No gas. No ethanol problems. No maintenance. Just keep the battery charged. I am here to tell you it sucks! We continuously get error codes even though the connection pins have been cleaned constantly and are connected properly. Of course this typically happens when we are trying to return TO the boat and it's dark out. At 3 hp, it is way underpowered for the Bahamas. You sometimes need to travel great distances and at 3 knots (at times in strong current), will take you forever to get to where you are going. We constantly had to mooch rides with our friends or get towed back to the boat.

• Received a $688 Verizon Phone Bill. Our normal monthly phone bill is $100. Turns out, Sharon had called the Bahamas twice (most of it on hold) to get our Travel Health Visas straightened out. That was about $588 of 'international calling'. It never occurred to us. Try getting ahold of Verizon when your Verizon SIM card is NOT in your phone and you're overseas. It's impossible! Speaking of SIM cards...

• MrSim. MrSims is a company that sells SIM cards for other country's phone service. They mail you a SIM card and you tell them when to activate (before traveling overseas). They are supposed to put money into your account to give you phone/text/data for a week so you have time to 'top off' your account. In our case, BTC (Bahamas Telecomm). They didn't and our phones didn't work. Luckily we were in a marina that had wifi so we were able to contact them that way. Their 'best plan' was something like 1000 international minutes, text and 15 GB data. Cost $34 each. We never could get texting to work. They want you to use WhatsApp for texting and we don't know many people that use that. AND that $34 is every TWO weeks, not monthly. Keep in mind we were still paying Verizon and Visible monthly charges. For future reference, 15 GB on one phone (that can be used as a hotspot) is more than enough unless you plan on doing a lot of streaming.

• Tony broke his elbow. You just can't appreciate our healthcare system until you are in the Bahamas. The islands that are inhabited have a clinic with a nurse. The nurse is part nurse, part travel agent to get you to Nassau and back. Tony had to fly to Nassau and back to Great Guana Cay, cut their trip short, take their boat to Nassau, fly home (while Michelle remained behind) for follow-up treatment to discover he had fractured his elbow in three places. The hospital in Nassau told him nothing was broken and put him in a soft cast.

• The trip from hell. Sharon already blogged about our 11+ hour trip from Chub Cay to Bimini. We have always picked a good/safe weather window to travel. We were careless and thankfully came out of it unscathed.

Lessons Learned:

• 2FA (2 factor authentication) is great for security. But it's not great when a verification code is sent to your phone that no longer has your normal phone services' SIM card in it. Luckily we use a Google Voice number that sends a text to email and any bank, credit card, etc account was also tied to an email address.  

• VPN (virtual private network). For security purposes this is a no brainer. You securely surf the internet and remain invisible. But the best part is you can make it appear that you are in the U.S. and not the Bahamas (or anywhere overseas). For example: I would make a VPN connection to a server in Miami. As far as my credit union is concerned, I was 'in Miami'.

• Solar panels. I though about getting them but decided not to bother since we have a generator. That worked fine until we didn't have a generator! I highly recommend going with free quiet electricity in the Bahamas. They may have even been able to generate enough watts to run an ice maker.

• Water maker. This would be nice-to-have but totally unnecessary. We left Key West with 230 gallons of fresh water and water costs anywhere from .40-.75 cents/gallon in the Bahamas. A water maker and associated filters would cost wayyyy  more than the cost of water.

• Buddy boating. We have never buddy boated and always travel separately. Traveling with two other boats and good friends made the experience all that more fun and safe and often times one of us would have a part or 'cup of sugar' that someone else needed.

Back to Bimini

Saturday morning, May 8^th, we set an alarm for 6:15 am, yes an alarm and yes 6:15 on a Saturday.  Our goal was to be underway by 7, we had a long day ahead of us.  The sky was not looking very favorable, the couple next to us on Safari said they were going to wait a little longer before leaving, hoping to wait out the storm.  Not us, we got underway, luckily the storm went completely around us.

Sunrise before leaving Chub Cay

Storm clouds ⛅

We knew it was not the ideal day to be crossing the bank, but we did not want to stay at Chub Cay until Tuesday, our next good weather window.  When talking to the couple from Safari the evening before they told us their plan was Great Harbour Marina (still in the Berry’s) to Port Lucaya (Grand Bahamas, Freeport).  Before leaving, we told them our plan was to Bimini and if it was too bad we would change course and go their route.

Well, we started out it wasn’t too bad, but the further we traveled the more the boat was rocking from the waves, still not extremely bad.  At this point we decided best to change course and start heading to Great Harbour, only 4 hrs. versus 10 hrs.  I called the marina and they had no open slips available.  However, there were several anchorages nearby.   Just when I found a slip at Grand Bahamas Yacht Club, Safari hails us on the radio to inform us they decided to go to Bimini. 

Rob informed Safari that we were unable to get a slip at Great Harbour, Safari was kind enough to offer to contact the marina and switch his reservation to us.  Rob and I discussed our options and figured they must know something we don’t.  There trawler was just a slight smaller than ours. So I said let’s just go to Bimini.

We radioed Safari and told them we were going to change our course back and buddy boat with them to Bimini.  We soon discovered they travel just a little faster than us.  Shortly, after we altered our course, I told Rob you are probably going to hate me for saying “let’s just go to Bimini”, at this time it was still fairly pleasant.  Well, here is where the fun really begins.

The winds started to increase, which in turns means the waves also were getting larger. The winds were out of the northeast, so they were basically coming across the beam. To make things worse, the wave swells were hitting us at two different directions. This was making us rock and roll all over the place.   

While underway, I play games (Candy Crush), read, puzzles, anything to keep me occupied.  Rob says I don’t know how you can read when especially when we are rolling like we were.  I do those things otherwise I would just watch the waves and that would not be good. 

So, for hours we constantly rocked and rolled to the point where we both thought the boat was going to roll over.  Neither one of us spoke of our fears.  But, I could see the worry/panic in Rob’s face as I continued to read while praying silently.  In addition, the autopilot continuously failed, which meant it kept setting off a beeping alarm.  It would correct itself and the process would start all over again.

As I said before Safari was just a little faster than us, so it was not long before they were way ahead of us.  They kept in contact with us the entire trip, gave us updates on the conditions ahead of us.  Safari was heading to South Bimini and we were heading to North Bimini. During our conversations, there apparently was another boat listening in, Be As You Are contacted us to figure out where we were because they were not seeing the same conditions we were talking about.

Be As You Are also left Chub Cay around 6 in the morning and we couldn’t figure out why we did not see the sailboat.  They went south of Mackie Shoal and we went north.

The trip was so bad once we docked and hooked up the electric at Bimini Bluewater Marina I got out the bourbon and vodka.  Rob poured himself a quadruple bourbon on the rocks and I had a Moscow mule (vodka and ginger beer).   

Chub to Bimini

Some pictures of the damage:

Broken picture frame

Flybridge

Portable ice maker fell over

Once we were settled, I quickly heated up some leftovers, Rob had not eaten all day.  I on the other hand, ate every snack, I had in my little basket.  After we ate I said I need to get off the boat, I needed to walk.  Rob just wanted to chill, but he walked with me.  Of course, 2 minutes into our walk we encountered Star from our time here last month.

On Sunday, Mother’s Day after talking to each kid (best part of the day) and Rob talked to his mother we decided to spend the afternoon relaxing on the beach.  Later, when it was time for a cold refreshing beverage we walked to Big Mike’s Conch stand. 

The stand is small with only a few seats and overlooks the beautiful blue waters.  No seats available, we began talking to the couple sitting on the end while waiting to get a drink. Come to find out, John and Belinda were on the sailboat Be As You Are.  We seem to keep attracting sailboat friends.

The four of us left Mike’s and walked to Shadow’s Coconut bar on the beach.  Shadow’s drink were not as good as Coconut Brian’s but, he was entertaining. 

We then moved on to the Conch Fu Shack for dinner. 

The bartender asks what music we wanted to listen to and John says Barry Manilow, REALLY.  It gets better, they gave control of the music to John.  He actually played a variety of music. He was very entertaining he sang and even danced to just about every song. 

The guys both got a conch burger and us ladies ordered salads.  The guys were a little disappointed they thought a conch burger came in the form of a burger.  It was fried conch on a burger bun.  Two guys sat at the table next to us, Matt and Bob.  They just arrived in the Bahamas and were heading to Nassau.

Matt and Bob ordered drinks in a coconut.  Matt offered to buy Belinda and me the same drink for Mother’s Day.  We of course said sure.  I believe the drink in the coconut was straight up rum.

Belinda and I with our 🥥 🥥

On Monday morning, there was a knock on the door.  It was the couple from Safari, so we finally exchanged names with Dan and Mary.  They had felt bad that we had such a horrible trip over.

We took our scooters to the bread store, I wanted a loaf of the cinnamon bread, I thought it was the best bread we had the entire trip.  Not saying the other bread we had wasn’t good, but the cinnamon was my favorite.  They were out, so no bread for me, good thing because I think I've gained about 10 lbs. just from bread.

The rest of the day we did some exploring, we went to Stuart’s for a conch salad, spent some more time on the beach, hung out with John and Belinda. Finally,  started prepping for our early morning departure back to the States.

Stuart's Conch Shack 

Last time in the beautiful blue water

Highbourne to Chub Cay Resort and Marina

On Sunday morning, May 2nd, we prepared to get underway, we were leaving our friends from Liberty Call and Patricia Marie, we were heading to Highbourne Cay.  We passed our friends to give one more wave 👋 goodbye. I think there may have been a few tears 😢 from Rob and myself. 

We had a fairly uneventful journey from Black Point to Highbourne, underway about 6 and 1/2 hours averaging 7.9 knots 🪢.  Our plan was to get a slip at the Highbourne Cay Marina, when Rob called they had no slips available, imagine that. As we passed the marina, to go to our anchorage, we noticed how empty the marina was. 

Black Point to Highbourne

Worked out, we went back to where we anchored on the way south. Perfect spot for our last sunset in the Exumas.

Last sunset in Exumas

Next day, we headed towards Nassau, our plan was to anchor ⚓ in the Nassau harbor, after reading the reviews we decided it would be best not to.  We passed Atlantis, pretty impressive, even from the water.  We were not getting a slip in Nassau because we would need to obtain a Covid test prior to moving to another island  🏝.  We already had non refundable reservations for Chub Cay Club Marina.   

We traveled just over 48 nautical miles in a little over 6 hours.  We practically surfed 🏄‍♂️ most of the day.  We made our way back to Old Fort Bay anchorage.  After dropping the anchor ⚓ we determined we were going to be rocking most of the night, again.  

Highbourne to Old Fort (Nassau)

While making dinner, chicken parm with spaghetti and sautéed spinach 😋, I seen a sailboat arriving it looked like Patricia Marie. We weren't sure it was them as the boat kept going very close to shore, very unusual. 

We watched as what looked to be a police 🚔 boat come up alongside and circle them. It was the Patricia Marie and come to find out they were taking on water and their bilge pump could not keep up. They called the Coastguard, hence the police boat.  

Sunset off Nassau

Tony figured out his problem, where he thought the water was coming in. The next morning Rob rowed over (remember dinghy motor not working) with some spare parts to assist Tony with fixing his problem. 

Almost there!

We pulled up the anchor and headed for Chub Cay Club Marina.  I felt bad for leaving, but Rob assured me they were fine and the issue was fixed.  The Patricia Marie was going to spend another night and head to Morgan's Bluff.

We arrived at Chub Cay Club Marina and hailed the dockmaster, we were told to switch to 68 and standby. So we did as told, we did circles until a large fishing vessel came barreling in and the dockmaster told him just come on in.  Now of course we have to wait for the fishing boat to get tied up, Rob has no patience at all at this point.  Everyone is on "Island Time".

The facility is nice, floating docks, pool with swim up bar, beautiful beach, ship store, club house, etc. We were happy to be in a slip with power and water. We finally had ice, Rob was happy.

Chub Cay Clubhouse

Our first adventure to the Nauti Rooster 🐓, the local bar and grill, was interesting. As I said before, everyone is on "Island Time", Bruce (bar tender) seemed very annoyed 😒 that we entered the establishment. It was so bad we decided to not even stay, but before leaving, we did meet 2 interesting young ladies that were crew on a 110 ft. yacht.

We figured we might as well splurge and go the Club House Restaurant for dinner. We made our reservations (had to have for dinner) for 1800 (6pm).   Our waitress was Wendy, she was very professional and friendly. We started off outside on the veranda sipping our martinis.  We determined it was way to hot to be outside. Wendy was very accommodating with moving us inside and the restaurant was empty, not sure why the reservation was required.  

I ordered the fresh local catch (grilled snapper) with buttered wild rice pilaf, grilled broccolini and a cilantro tomato jam.  It was very delicious!  Rob ordered the classic Bahamian Cracked Conch dinner, which came with locally harvested conch that was lightly battered and fried, peas and rice (really beans not peas), island style coleslaw and a coconut calypso dipping sauce.  My meal was much better, just sayin!

Let's go take a walk, we always pick the hottest time of day to go for a walk, which ends up being a death march.  Of course full on sun, no water, and no shade on the sandy road.  As we were on our way back, thank goodness a local came by in a golf cart and offered us a ride,  I would have fainted from heat exhaustion if he had not.

We found a beach!

I liked the wall.

Random driveway.

We of course got in some pool time! We met several other cruisers.  

We also decided to give the Nauti Rooster another try.  So glad we did, we spent happy hour with the locals, shot some pool🎱 ( I won both games), one local tried to give me tips on which ball and pocket, but I completely missed.  He then told me what I did wrong.  

This shirt was from the Maryland restaurant Suicide Bridge:

Chub Cay was a nice marina but a little pricier than we normally like to pay for a marina.